Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective. This time the UFC had two title fights in the men’s and women’s Fly weight division at The Apex in Las Vegas.
Figueiredo submits challenger Perez
Deiveson Figueiredo made easy work of Alex Perez as he took out the former Dana White Contender Series competitor. Figueiredo used his trademark guillotine to close the show on Perez. The first-round submission could have garnered him a Performance Bonus although it did not.
Figueiredo has a quick turnaround as he faces Brandon Moreno who defeated Brandon Royval in a title eliminator in the feature bout of the prelims. Perhaps the good news on the turnaround is that he will once again headline a UFC PPV.
Shevchenko drops a round, but otherwise dominates Maia
Jennifer Maia is strong and proved a tough out for Valentina Shevchenko. Maia was able to push Shevchenko up against the fence and won the second round. However, Shevchenko poured it on in the last three rounds as Maia tired for the unanimous decision.
At this point, Shevchenko’s choices for her next defense may be Jessica Andrade or Lauren Murphy.
Prelims
The 3 hour prelims took place on ESPN2 on Saturday and drew 587,000 viewers and 221,000 in the A18-49 demo. It also drew a 0.34 household rating.
Bonuses
The bonuses went to Valentina Shevchenko and Joaquin Buckley for Performances of the Night. The fight of the night went to Louis Cosce and Sasha Palatnikov which was the first fight on the prelims for UFC 255. Palatnikov won a back and forth hard-hitting fight with a third-round stoppage.
Sponsors
The Joe Rogan Podcast was the most notable edition to the UFC PPV Saturday. The podcasts, which recently moved to Spotify are wildly popular as well as controversial.
In the Octagon were UFC sponsors, DAV, EA UFC 4, Guaranteed Rate, Parimatch, Modelo, Draft Kings Sportsbook, Nemiroff, P3, Hospital for Special Surgery, TR2 Tactical Response, Monster Energy and Sheetz shared a post, Toyo Tires, UFC Fight Pas, U.S. Army, Howler Head and Monster Energy had the center.
Manscaped had the outside the Octagon second area.
EA UFC 4 had the fighter prep point.
Odds and ends
Mike Perry forfeited 30% of his purse as he failed to make weight. He did have a coach in his corner aside for his girlfriend. There was some controversy about Perry participating in this event considering the allegations of domestic violence against his former girlfriend.
Dana White used Instagram to heavily promote new sponsor Howler Head.
With the twitter posts going on during the fights, they now have sponsors which rotated throughout the night.
Joe Rogan brought up an ‘oil check’ by Shogun Rua on Paul Craig. Google the term. Very funny.
I’m noticing more use of larger graphics to promote the fights and events.
The google searches for UFC 255 drew over 200,000 searches.
Conclusion
UFC 255 has to be considered one of the least anticipated cards of 2020. Despite two title fights, neither drew any sincere interest from casual fans. A part of this is that the challengers were huge underdogs and the champions are not big fan favorites. While Shevchenko may head to be a big deal, she still does not have competition or the absolute dominance to entice someone willing to pay $65. If we do get a report on PPV, its likely to grab somewhere in the 200K-250K neighborhood.
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